Courage
by RJF
Summary: Oneshot. Set after the episode “Long Live The Queen”. Piper consoles Phoebe on Cole’s vanquish, and assures her that she’ll stand by her, no matter what.


**Summary:** One-shot. Set after the episode "Long Live The Queen". Piper consoles Phoebe on Cole's vanquish, and assures her that she'll stand by her, no matter what.

Disclaimer: Charmed? Yeah, ain't mine.

**Courage**

Piper awoke for the fourth time that night. It had been around late afternoon when she and Paige had come to Phoebe's room, and now it looked to be around nine p.m. Each time the eldest Charmed One had awoke, she had always felt the pregnant belly of her younger sister protected underneath her arm, but this time, her arm was flat on the warm bed. Phoebe wasn't there. Being forced to open her eyes for the first time in hours, Piper's sight was met with the glaring orange of the back of Paige's jacket. It looked like the youngest Halliwell sibling had also peacefully fell asleep in the secure presence of her two sisters, as her form was slowly rising and fall with each breath. Trying to find the willpower to being herself into a sitting position, Piper let out an inaudible groan as she pushed down on the bed with both arms, finally getting up as her eyes focused to the source of a choked sob that had just broke through the serene silence of the bedroom.

Phoebe sat on the comfortable sofa by the window. She was hugging her legs, the bottom half of her face covered as she buried her head in her knees. Piper had to admit that it was probably the calmest Phoebe had been in the last twenty four hours. Her body was shaking with heart-wrenching sobs, and the only thing that broke the quiet now and again, was either a small hiccup or a sniff. The middle Charmed One's eyes were red, moist, and swollen. A side effect from the gigantic amount of tears she had shed from sitting on her bed all day alone. Yesterday's make-up was now practically running off her face, pale black streaks that ran from her eyes down to her chin made the remnants of mascara look like tattoos, a symbol of her pain. The hood of her zip-up sweater was up around her head, casting a shadow on her face as she was bowed down into the fetal position, gently rocking back and forth as if she was in a trance.

"Phoebe?" Piper cautiously called out softly, slowly slipping off the bed so she didn't disturb Paige's sleeping. The eldest Charmed One walked across the floorboards, making sure to avoid the ones that creaked. She, Prue, and Phoebe had all shared this room for most of their childhood, making Piper well aware of how to move across it without making a noise. "Pheebs?" The witch called out again, using her sister's affectionate nickname to see if she could get a response.

The middle Charmed One looked up, offering her older sister a weak, empty smile as she wiped her eyes with her sleeves, trying to cover up just how upset she was, "Hey…" She croaked, sniffing a little, "Sorry… I didn't wake you, did I?" She asked cautiously, turning towards the window and letting out a sigh, "I have the power of premonition and yet I never, ever… saw this coming." She whispered to herself, resting her chin on her knees.

Piper fidgeted nervously with her hands, choosing to ignore Phoebe's statement. She moved closer to her sister and gently set herself down beside her on the couch, turning a little and bringing one leg up onto the sofa as she brushed her hair back behind her ears, folding her arms, "Nah… I haven't really been able to sleep soundly anyway." She admitted, looking down at the pattern in the couch fabric, "What woke you up?"

"Same reason." Phoebe smiled, bringing her hood down and allowing her messy hair to be free, "Although I felt a like I was gonna throw up, so I got up and went to the bathroom the last time I woke up. It was a false alarm… Just part of the joy of pregnancy I guess…" She trailed off into a quiet murmur, the thought of her baby obviously reminding her of Cole and setting off a new flood of tears. The middle Charmed One fought the urge however, letting out a noise that was halfway between a sob and a laugh, "I feel so stupid… I'm crying because the Source is dead." She admitted with a bittersweet smile which Piper returned.

"Well, he was your lover for two years, not to mention the father of your child… I think you have the right to mourn." Piper said softly, smiling to herself at the implied lunacy of her statement.

Phoebe also seemed to find it amusing, "That just sounds even more ridiculous!" She exclaimed, letting out a laugh that was followed by a long, loud, sniff. "I think we should stop there before jokes about fireballs crop up." She sniggered, basking in the silence as the two smiled at each other, "Cole always loved a little bit of crude humour…" She smiled meekly, burying her face back into her knees.

"Oh, trust me, I remember." Piper replied, remembering a rather dirty joke about man that went to Venus. Prue had thrown her elbow into his gut for it, and Piper had just walked away in disgust with her hand over her eyes, trying to stop the mental images that had been triggered from the joke. "You know, Cole didn't have anything to do with the evil he's done. The only reason he became the Source was because he wasn't going to sit on the sidelines."

"So this is our fault?"

"No, it was just the kind of person that he was. Even if you take away the powers and the magic, he always wanted to be part of the fight, he always wanted to be in on the action, and he would always do anything to protect you…" Piper explained calmly, laying a hand on Phoebe's knee, "And he kept Paige and I alive so we could help vanquish the Source, because do you really think the Source would have let us live if the Power of Three was gone? He saved us all… and your baby."

At the very mention of the growing life inside of her, Phoebe laid a protective hand over her stomach, rubbing it over her abdomen in a circular motion and letting a bittersweet smile fall across her face, "I've been thinking about names…" She admitted, frowning a little, "It's weird. The only thing I could think about a few days ago was how powerful this baby was going to be, how it was going to rule the Underworld… But now, I'm thinking like I thought I always would. I guess the Seer's tonic is wearing off."

Piper mentally groaned. The Seer. They still had her to deal with. Paige seemed to think that without the Source, she wouldn't come anywhere near the reunited Charmed Ones, but Piper thought differently. Everything was fitting in too perfectly for the clairvoyant demon, which made the eldest Halliwell think that something had been in the planning from the start. Still, she didn't want to worry her sister right now, not with everything that was going on.

Pulling her legs up onto the sofa and hugging her knees in a similar fashion to her sister, Piper pursed her lips into a tight smile, "Names, huh? Care to share? And you're going to need to 'wow!' me. The first boy in this family for three centuries is going to need a _great_ name!"

Feeling more at ease, Phoebe imitated Piper's pose and faced her, looking to the ceiling as she called the names from her memory, "Well, I was thinking about Gordon, you know, after Grams' dad? But then I thought it was a little old fashioned, so then I thought I could call him Alan after Grandpa. Maybe Paul? You know, for the whole P thing. Or… maybe Cole."

Piper shifted a little at the name of her sister's former lover. She wanted to console Phoebe, but she couldn't get the image of Cole hurling a fireball towards Greg Conroy and killing him, all with a sick smirk on his face. She knew that it hadn't been the real Cole, and Piper usually wasn't hung up on appearances, but… this just seemed to stick in her mind. "Look, Phoebe…" She began, hoping to change the subject, "I think we're going to have to do something to protect the baby. He's the Source's only heir, demons are going to be coming after him."

"They'll have to come through me first…" Phoebe replied darkly, nestling her face back into her knees as she glared at the material of the sofa.

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of. They will want to come through you." Piper pointed out calmly, "You're not alone in this, you know that, right?" She asked, putting a hand on Phoebe's knee. "Paige and I are going to be with you every step of the way."

At this, the middle Charmed One let out a hollow chuckle, "You sure about that? Something tells me Paige wouldn't be too torn up if the last remnants of Cole were gone from the world." Although her words had been harsh, Phoebe turned towards the bed and smiled fondly at her slumbering younger sibling, "I have a lot of thank her for… If she hadn't set off some suspicions in my head, my premonition power would never have been able to give me the vision that showed me the truth…" She said sadly, remembering all the acts of evil that flashed through her head to quickly, exposing Cole for the evil that he had become.

Piper looked over to Paige, smiling also as the witchlighter's nose twitched in her sleep, "We both have a lot to thank her for… I don't think we would have survived this long with just the two of us… without Prue… we owe her our lives. Of course, we could never tell her that, because it would just go straight to her head." She shot an amused smirk at her still slumbering sibling, before turning back to Phoebe, "And about your baby… Well, I'll bring her around." In a way, she regretted those words the moment they fell from her mouth. This was the offspring of the Source they were dealing with. Paige's fears were well founded, and so were hers. But she could never let Phoebe know this.

"You promise?" The middle Halliwell sibling asked innocently, reminding her big sister all of the times Phoebe had scraped her knee as a child, and as Piper had put the band aid on, she had said that, eventually, it would stop hurting. The situation they were in right now seemed to mirror those memories perfectly.

"I promise."

The two of them jumped in fight when Paige took a particularly loud breath in her sleep. Or in her consciousness, as her eyes fluttered open a few seconds later. She frowned at the pair of brown eyes staring at her from the window and pushed herself into a sitting position, "Aw, damn…" She murmured to herself, seeing the creases in her jacket from falling asleep in it, "I was gonna wear this to work tomorrow…" She groaned, disappointed, before standing up and walking over to her sisters, "What are we talking about?"

"Sundaes." Piper jumped in before Phoebe could respond with a more honest answer, "We were just about to wake you so we could go downstairs and make my patented Piper Halliwell Sundae."

Paige cringed at the thought, "Is that the thing where you put all the ice cream and flavouring sauce we own into a big bowl and eat it? No way. That thing nearly made me puke so many times that I-," She was cut off when Phoebe suddenly flew past her with her hand over her mouth, stumbling towards the door and wrenching it open, making a beeline for the bathroom at the bottom of the hall. The remaining Charmed Ones shared a look of shock and worry, "Better out than in, I guess…"

"Come on, we'll go get started in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure we could melt a candy bar to two and throw them in." Piper suggested airily, getting up from the sofa and walking towards the door. She was about to step out into the hallway when she stopped and turned around, one hand still on the doorknob, "Thank you, Paige."

"For what?"

Piper smirked and started to walk towards the stairs, shaking her head, "Nothing."


End file.
